The first thing that came to my mind was “An American in Canada,” but that was a comedy (and a pretty funny one, in spite of being set in Calgary and being shot almost exclusively in Toronto).
I tried to watch “A Little Mosque on the Prairie,” but it was awful.
Yeah, what a weird point of view your acquaintances have, Spoons. Using Rita McNeil as evidence that the CBC is Toronto and Montreal centric is just so…bizarre. Is she even on TV much any more?
The creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie grew up and was educated in Toronto, but chooses to live in Saskatchewan, which is where the show is based and partially filmed. That’s not “western” enough for some people?
Toronto Blue Jay games haven’t been playedon the CBC in my lifetime: CTV (1981-1996), TSN (1990-2000), The Score (2001-2002) and Rogers Sportsnet and RDS now.
The CBC hasn’t had CFL broadcastingrights (except for the playoffs 1991-2007) since 1986. TSN/RDS have had exclusive rights since 2007.
I don’t even watch the CBC, so I can’t comment on the news and any slant it might have. But seriously… if your acquaintances are that misinformed and living in the past about the CBC, Spoons, you aren’t really making me feel all that confident about how knowledgeable they are about complicated things like political issues! 
Perhaps. And you make some good points. But the fact remains that the CBC is seen by many as an eastern entity, pushing the wonders of the Toronto way of life, “Heartland” notwithstanding.
I don’t know what the solution is. More “Heartlands” and “An American in Canadas”? Maybe, maybe not. Divesting national news and commentary production out of Toronto and Montreal; to Calgary, Regina, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, so we get more than the central Canada POV? Who knows? Getting rid of the obscure jazz and classical music on CBC radio in favour of country music? Your guess is as good as mine.
I simply don’t know. I’m calling 'em as I hears 'em, and locally, the what I hears about the CBC is that it is at best tolerated and at worst, disliked as a waste of tax dollars. Like I said, don’t shoot the messenger.
But the fact of the matter is it is NOT a state broadcaster otherwise it wouldn’t be in conflict with the government.
Southern Ontario has 12 million people in it, the lower mainland has 3 and Montreal has almost 4. That means 20 million people in a country of 32 are from heavily urban areas. There is no possible way it could not appear to be urban centric and focused on metropolitan areas. Hell I’d almost argue it’s heavily influenced by codco and Atlantic Canada.
They are in fact wrong and the Government should argue the merits of removing a public broadcaster without poisoning the well.
I remember that one, but it’s not what I’m thinking of. From what I recall, the show was a male/female lead pairing where the male lead had something sort of shady history dealing with oil rig politics.
And the comparison to USSR broadcasting just blows my mind. Methinks some westerners have a misplaced persecution complex. I really don’t understand it. If I want to know what people think about something in St. Johns or Moose Jaw or Okanagan it would never occur to me to look at the National news… I’d look for local news articles in St. Johns, Moose Jaw and Okanagan, or at least sources with that province.
Also: the online CBC News site has separate tabs for news in:
British Columbia
Toronto
Calgary
Ottawa
Edmonton
Montreal
Saskatchewan
New Brunswick
Manitoba
Prince Edward Island
Thunder Bay
Nova Scotia
Sudbury
Newfoundland & Labrador
Windsor
North
What more could you ask for? The news may have a slant that people don’t agree with, but clicking on Edmonton, for example, I see a video ad for local news anchors, I see news articles posted by reporters who must be on-site and are presumably from the area (given as they get quotes and photos from people), I see a player of CBC Radio One which has an Edmonton feed… News|Events|Weather|Programming…are all these people, all these opinions, all these employees who work for the CBC some sort of Toronto-controlled-mindhive drone saying things that aren’t true about the region they live and work in?
Sorry, I know you’re just the messenger but I’m trying to see it from the perspective of the people you mention, and I just don’t see it. I don’t see the West being ignored, I don’t see everything being Toronto-centric, I don’t see condescension. Maybe the cbc.ca/news webpage is Toronto-centric, but it’s not like there’s an absence of news about other regions.
I really, really don’t understand, and I’m trying to.
Is it possible that a lot of these “views” are as wrong and outdated as a lot of the views sovereignty in Quebec have? Are people holding onto older/previous realities and just not adapting to the way the world is today?
Again, I don’t even watch the channel, so I can’t talk about that aspect of it. Naturally, the only one I have access to would be based out of Montreal. I guess I could watch the news there for a few days and see how it differs from CTV Montreal (my default for TV-based news) and see if there’s a different spin between those two channels. That might be fair of me to do.
That’s a fair point. Maybe they are misinformed–but they would refuse to believe you (generic “you”) on that point; they would suggest that you are misinformed. I’ll add that it is comments like easterners’ non-confidence in their knowledge of “complicated things like political issues” that really get their back up. At that point, to them, the easterner is automatically wrong. Short-sighted and intolerant, but there you go.
However, westerners are taxpayers and voters, and they do have a voice in elections, however correct or misguided.
So let me ask this: should they be “educated” by CBC in how to think and consequently, how to vote (i.e. propaganda); or should they be presented with a variety of points of view from the entity (i.e. CBC) they pay for? My personal feeling is for the latter; I’d like to see good debate between regions and points-of-view on our national broadcaster–that will make all Canadians more informed, I think; and consequently, better-equipped to make a good decision at election time.
I will admit that many of my western friends and acquaintances are amazed that I, along with many past and present Torontonians currently in Alberta, are not necessarily pro-environment, anti-tar sands, Liberal-voting, Prius-driving, latte-swilling, gay-marriage-favoring, abortionists. No, we have a variety of points of view on a number of issues–which the media out here often neglects to mention.
If you come from the east, never tell a westerner that he or she is wrong. You will automatically prejudice them against your argument; and no matter how correct you are, they will refuse to acknowledge it.
A fact of life I have learned the hard way.
So they are willfully misinformed? That’s their defence? They are so prejudiced against “the east” that the very fact that someone may be from there means that all facts, opinions and commentary is automatically invalid because all easterners are [insert offensive stereotype here] and all this is said with a backdrop of “we aren’t all a stereotype!!!”
Um…
… I’m going to choose not to believe you, because otherwise, that is one crazy, backwoods ignorant bunch of people you work with. You aren’t endearing westerners to this Montrealer 
I agree with you that a more open discussion of issues and sharing of ideas is a good thing (tell that to Harper’s Conservatives, willya?) and it would be a good direction for the CBC to go in, particularly as they are losing the sports and entertainment market to CTV/Bell/Rogers/TSN.
But your acquaintances need to agree to be much, much more openminded if they demand us to be!
One more thing…even if the CBC showed a broader point of view, no one should be accepting information from a single news source.
People need to learn to think for themselves.
It’s only “propaganda” if it’s all you ever hear… otherwise it’s information to be mixed, filtered, compared and examined in order to understand an issue.
Geez, the CBC hasn’t even been the only channel available over rabbit-ears in my lifetime! It is not, in fact, 1974. :smack:
I really, really, really just don’t understand. Is it possible to strain your brain?
The counter-argument to that is, “why do we get local Toronto (or Montreal) news?” Police have a car chase in Toronto, and we get it on the news. There’s a murder-suicide involving guns and car chases in Claresholm, Alberta, but I’d bet you don’t see that. We’re hearing all about the Shafia (sp?) “honour killings” trial in Kingston, Ontario; have you heard about the big ticket-scam fraud trial we’ve had in Lethbridge? How about the guy who shot a photo-radar unit, missed, and nearly killed a kid in a passing vehicle?
Although not a part of this discussion, the Weather Network is most telling. I get an in-depth discussion and analysis of the weather in Toronto, Markham, Pickering, Stouffville, Mississauga, Concord, Oshawa, and Burlington for ten minutes. Then I get a one minute local forecast, without commentary; before we’re back to an in-depth discussion and analysis of the weather in Toronto, Markham, Pickering, Stouffville, Mississauga, Concord, Oshawa, and Burlington.
That’s not an east/west thing, that’s a people thing.
I remember working in Calgary in the late 90s, consulting for a telcom company and coming from Ottawa of all places. 
I kept hearing about NEP and the complete lack of coverage of Alberta in the national news. Actually it was the complete lack of reaction from outside Alberta to news from Alberta that seemed to be a sore point. What was taken as malicious disinterest was simply ignorance of the issue. And to be fair to Torontonians, most of the issues were provincial in nature and would likely never raise eyebrows anywhere anyway.
It’s almost a symptom of the political monoculture we seem to have fallen into. I’m not sure we’d have this kind of discussion if the federal parties had greater representation across all regions over the past 20 years.
Also want to point out that the last “State Broadcaster” bit I heard was on an Ontario talk radio show. It seems to be another right/left split rather than east/west and yet another stupid aping of American politics.
www.cbc.ca/news
The biggest headline on the page right now is
“4 Alberta highway deaths likely murder-suicide”
Oddly enough, the majority of the other ones are either events in BC (guess they are being read by still-awake British Columbians) or things related to the federal government, the latter of which you gotta admit affects us all. There’s a good-sized segment on the Canada Wheat Board and the government’s decisions on that.
I’ve seen the other two news stories on Google News feeds, but they aren’t on the front page of CBC, true enough. Clicking on the murder-suicide link does, however, give me a section of other Calgary top headlines (Officer denies signing to witness at Paxton trial, Driver guilty of 2nd-degree murder for fatal run at crowd, Girl, 4, is Alberta’s youngest heart-lung transplant patient).
“Western” news is right there for me to read and rather trivial to find.
Perhaps you’re just reading too many Ontario-based news articles?
FWIW my local Montreal news rarely covers events that happen even in Toronto, let alone elsewhere.
I can’t excuse the Weather Network. That is stupid. But that’s hardly left-biased media, that’s just a stupid network. There are better sources for the weather, IMHO.
Environment Canada is pretty good, though it isn’t on TV. Do you guys simply not have any local news channels? That might explain things.
I agree. But I would ask you to look at the people around you–they may well hold the same feelings. Oh, not like the westerners whom I have described–but generally, as in “those who live in the ___ region of the country are ignorant and misinformed.”
I think one of the problems that we, as Dopers, face, is that we tend to be well-educated, tolerant, open to various points of view, and so on. In this regard, we’re not much different from those anywhere who have been exposed to debate, education, life experience, and so on. The challenge we face is that not everybody is like us; and those who are not like us are our friends and neighbours.
Who have you known who is not like you? In my case, I can think of many: the guy who taught me how to drive a semi-rig, and who is still a friend today. The warehouse boys I worked with in Toronto. The guys I worked with on an assembly line in Calgary, and who I still catch up with when I am in Calgary. The construction worker who always talks to me at the local sports bar. As you know, I am educated and hold two degrees–but these guys mostly quit school as soon as they could; and not being exposed to much else (as you and I have through education), hold the views they always have. No disrespect to them intended–they are hard-working, pleasant, friendly, and as informed as the Toronto and Calgary Suns allow them to be. But they do not have the breadth of experience and education that you and I do.
I hate saying the above, because those folks remain my friends, and I value their friendship. They are good, salt-of-the-earth people, and I’d rather spend time with them drinking beer in a blue-collar bar than I would sipping martinis with the “beautiful people” in a Bloor Street cafe. (As an aside, I’ve done the latter; it’s boring.)
But I would also suggest that these are the people whom the CBC doesn’t reach (to bring the discussion back to that). They have nothing in common with the Bloor Street martini drinkers, but that is what the CBC seems to pander to.
Wow! Okay, maybe the rest of the country does hear about us occasionally. How about the photo radar unit? (Bet no Torontonian or Montrealer ever shot a photo radar unit.)
Agreed. Environment Canada online is better for weather; and the local AMA (i.e. CAA) is best for road conditions in winter.
Very few. The CBC has no local presence outside of radio, and that’s a feed from either national or Calgary (i.e. nothing local). We do get CBC TV from Calgary, but that’s all either national programming or Calgary news. CTV and Global each have local TV stations, but their contributions are limited to one or two 30-minute local newscasts a day, and inserting local commercials at other times.
Print-wise, I can get the Globe and Mail, National Post, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, and Lethbridge Herald at the local convenience store (and online), but with the exception of the Lethbridge Herald, nothing reports locally. Even the Calgary Herald tends to ignore us. The Lethbridge Herald subscribes to news services such as Canadian Press, but concerns itself mostly with local events and niceties (though that is to be expected for a local paper): city council debated the budget, auditions for the local community theatre production took place, Third Avenue was shut down yesterday due to a collision at Fifth Street. The letters page often contains pleas from the local Christian evangelists and/or Mormons to obey God (i.e. don’t support gay marriage or abortion), in spite of the fact that such issues are no longer newsworthy, but we are in Canada’s Bible Belt, so it is to be expected.
We do tend to live in a vacuum here in southern Alberta, which (to me, who used to read the print editions of the Globe, Star, and Sun daily) is unusual. I can follow national news online, on TV, and in print; but I wish more people locally would do the same. Even better, I wish they would get out and explore the rest of the country (we have a number of Mormons who have done missionary work all over the globe, but have never been to other parts of Canada), but they are reluctant to. A southern Albertan Mormon’s reaction to Quebec would be quite an eye-opener!
Maybe the problem is that Lethbridge is just boring.
Maybe it is. I don’t find it that way, but others might.
Please, please, please, I beg you, do not encourage your missionaries to wander about annoying people at their homes in the ROC.
Ontario tried photo radar but it got thrown out - the public hated it.
If it makes you feel better I never hear anything about London Ontario and it has about the same % of provincial population as Lethbridge. Big population centers have the people, the money and the infrastructure to dominate even if it isn’t intentional.